Chapter 550 - The most precious skeleton

A door opened in front of a short skeleton in fancy clothes.

“Oh! She won again!” the skeleton rejoiced, jumping in place, the skeletal crow on his head also jumping up and down on his skull.

Bookie’s joyous outburst did not last long, however. He clutched his book form against his chest as he walked through the newly opened door. He wanted to be there when Sofia eventually called for his help so he needed to triumph over his next task before Sofia reached her next trial within the palace.

“Without brother Pareth next to her I can’t help but worry…”

Bookie walked through the dark corridors hoping to reach his destination soon, as he was not very comfortable in complete darkness.

“Only four chances left… Sofia didn’t forget about me, right?” he worriedly asked the crow on his head, receiving a few skull-pecks in return.

Finally he saw some light in the distance, two of the Dungeon’s ominous candles illuminating an iron gate.

“Another arena!” Bookie exclaimed excitedly, running up to the gate. So far, the trials had been either logic or combat based, Bookie was not as good as he wanted with logic, so he was happy to see an arena again.

Yet when the arena gate opened, he was shocked by what was waiting on the other side. This was not like the previous times in the arena where a monster would be waiting there to fight to the death. This time, the arena was a bustling and noisy market of strangely-clothed skeletons roaming between stalls, haggling with the skeleton vendors, and overall creating a warm atmosphere in the candlelit arena.

Bookie was left speechless. What was he even supposed to do? Who were these people? Why was there a marketplace here in the first place?

Thankfully, the palace’s messenger, a strong and mighty dog skeleton, came to gift Bookie with an instruction scroll, departing as fast as he’d appeared, as if he was scared that Bookie would eat him.

Of course Bookie was a civilized book, he would never try to eat a living skeleton, so such worries would be unfounded. Probably.

Bookie sighed. “Another logic trial…”

‘Find and acquire the most valuable item in this arena, place it on the central pedestal to complete your task. You have three tries.’

Bookie watched the scroll disappear from his hands after he read it, he found it fascinating every time, the scroll was made of magic that simply unraveled by itself after the words were all read.

“What would Sofia do?” Bookie asked himself. This was his most efficient way to find solutions to logical issues thus far, just trying to emulate what Sofia might do.

After thinking about it for a bit, Bookie ran through the market’s crowd to reach the central pedestal. He was just a skeleton among skeletons, so nobody paid him any attention, and with smug satisfaction, he placed his book form on the pedestal, thinking that there was no way he wasn’t the most precious thing in the arena.

A red light shone over the market, and Bookie’s lower jaw dropped to the floor as he slowly pulled back his book form from the pedestal.

The red light stopped. He had two tries left.

“I was sure that would work…” he mumbled.

Since it seemed that his out of the box solution wasn’t it, Bookie moved to the side of the market to where there was some free space to summon skeletons. He summoned his entire stock of paladins, the Elven Engineer and the High-Priest, giving them the order to search through the market for the most valuable thing. The High-Priest knew of luxurious things, so he was to examine the stalls’ products, the Engineer was to examine the arena and the stalls themselves, to see if there were hidden riches anywhere, while the paladins were to examine the people, to see if they were wearing anything of value. Meanwhile, Crowie would fly overhead to monitor them.

That being done, Bookie himself started to look through the stalls’ products, starting from the side opposite to where the High-Priest was searching.

Bookie walked up to the first stall, where a tall human skeleton carved small wooden sculptures of monsters and soldiers. Many kid skeletons were watching the merchant sculpt a wooden Dragon in a cube of red wood.

The merchant stopped carving when he spotted Bookie from the corner of his eye sockets.

“New here, kid? Never seen you around,” he instantly called out Bookie.

“Uh- I- Yes! I- I just moved in. My family sent me here on an errand!” Bookie awkwardly made up some lies to feed the merchant, not sure if he should be honest about this being a trial or if he should just play along.

“I see. Welcome, then, since you’re new, I’ll sell you your first toy at a discount, if you want one,” the merchant happily told Bookie before he started carving again.

‘Th- Thank you very much mister. Ah, would you happen to know who sells the most expensive things in the market?”

“The most expensive thing?” The sculptor merchant repeated, stopping his carving again, which earned Bookie a few annoyed looks from the surrounding skeleton kids.

“It’s the errand I was sent on…”

“Trying to buy a present, perhaps?” the merchant guessed by himself, “You can try old Gilbur’s jewelry shop, it’s in the empty corner over there.”

Bookie thanked the merchant and ran from the other skeleton kids’ vicious glares. He quickly found the jewelry stall, which a dwarf skeleton was overseeing, sitting on a tall chair.

“Hello Sir Gilbur!” Bookie greeted as he approached the otherwise deserted stall.

“Oh! A fellow dwarf!” Gilbur excitedly greeted back, jumping down from his chair, “Haven’t seen one of my kin around here in a long time! Come, kid, look at my work, incredible, isn’t it?!”

Bookie was impressed as he glanced over the jewelry, there were plenty of beautiful gemstones and ornate rings on display.

“Your work is so beautiful, Sir Gilbur! Why is no one else looking at your stall?!” Bookie asked, baffled that this stall wasn’t more popular, “Are your jewels too expensive?”

“You have a good eye, kid, as you guessed it’s just that the people here are not that rich. You won’t find anything more precious than my masterful creations at these other stalls, so I rarely sell anything, to be honest, but when I do it’s enough money to last for a long while. So, anything catches your eyes? You’re a fellow dwarf so I’ll give you any one thing for free, how ’bout that?”

“Y- You’re way too generous, Sir Gilbur, can I really?”

“Of course kid, of course, pick whatever you want!”

That’s my chance!

Bookie wasn’t an expert in jewelry, but it was hard not to see the one Orichalcum pendant with a huge multicolored polished gem right in the center of the stall otherwise mostly covered in golden jewelry. It would be very presumptuous to ask for it, but that wouldn’t stop Bookie, what stopped him, however, was his experience with the past logic trials of the palace. He was suspicious now, because the two previous times, there had been tricks to prevent him from easily finding the true solution, and this one definitely felt way too easy in comparison.

As Bookie carefully observed the jewels, he found a little something that shone in a different color compared to the rest, it was hard to differentiate the hues with everything lit in the uniform orange candlelight, but while most jewels were clearly golden, one of the rings had a slight green tint to it.

Mithril!

Mithril was about ten times as expensive as Orichalcum by weight, so, discounting the multicolored gem, this ring was likely worth much more than the pink pendant.

“I want this!” Bookie said, pointing at the small ring that was in a corner of the stall, between a dozen other rings.

“This thing?” Gilbur asked, picking up the ring, “It’s not something I made, actually, picked that one from the side of the road and cleaned it myself but that’s about it. It’s the cheapest thing I sell here, can’t even be enchanted/ Are you sure you want this?”

Can’t be enchanted?! It’s definitely Mithril!!!

“Yes, please, I can’t tell you why but I just kind of like the color,” Bookie answered with a polite nod.

“Well, alright, you can have it, hope you don’t regret your decision later.”

“Thank youuuu!” Bookie thanked the jeweler profusely and ran to the side of the arena, where Crowie was waiting for him.

“Look what I found!” Bookie proudly showed Crowie, “How about the others?”

Crowie communicated how he could with pecks and caws, and somehow Bookie understood perfectly what the skeleton crow meant.

“Each group found something?! But I only have two tries left… Let’s go see Engineer first, as the smartest, I’m sure he found something good! I’ll choose the best thing when I have seen everything!”

Crowie flew up first, and Bookie ran after him.